CMS vs. HTML: What’s Best for Your Business Website?

HTML is the main scripting language that your browser uses to display websites. Back in the early days of the Internet, every page of most websites was hardcoded. Even though good web developers could produce fine websites this way, it was a very laborious process. Any changes to web design or navigation meant that a skilled developer had to go in and change the code, and sometimes these changes needed to get duplicated on every page of a 100 page website.

The Advantage of a CMS Over HTML for Your Business Website

A good Content Management System, usually called a CMS, relieves web developers of the chore of coding each page on a website by hand. Instead, these systems generate HTML and other scripts based on page templates, and these templates can be different for different kinds of pages. After the website is live, changes and updates get made through intuitive interfaces that do not require extensive knowledge of the underlying code.

This saves businesses money and gives developers more time to concentrate on improving appearance, functionality, navigation, and other important factors. After a development project ends, businesses may be able to use less skilled staff to make updates without needing to pay a professional developer.

WordPress: a Popular CMS Example

We’re not going to lie, we love WordPress. Zenman is a WordPress shop for a reason. WordPress, the most popular CMS on the planet, started out as a simple blogging platform. According to Forbes, WordPress is the system used by 60 million websites and pretty much wins the Internet. Today, because of improvements and extensions, WordPress is usually considered a full-fledged CMS that can get used to develop almost any type of website, including blogs, photo galleries, eCommerce stores, business directories, and more.

Over the years, multiple updates have improved the interface, security, and usability of this CMS as well. A variety of plugins, the term WordPress uses for extensions, can help improve on-page SEO and add new features to your site with the click of a few buttons. At Zenman, we steer away from third-party plugins and aim to build the functionality directly into a website, which helps increase performance and improve security.

Should You Ever Hard Code HTML?

The only problem with a CMS is that it may come loaded with bloat. Bloat usually refers to extra features that you don’t really need that could slow down your page load time. Bloat could also refer to features that you do need that just weren’t coded for speed optimization. If your page needs a lot of customization and speed is an issue, you may not be able to find a CMS with the proper extensions that can perform these functions efficiently, and in this case, your web designer may suggest a hard coded solution for your website.

HTML vs. CMS

It is probably fair to estimate that ninety-nine percent of business users will be more satisfied with a CMS. There are plenty of robust systems that can get updated and extended with little trouble. If your developer suggests hard coding in HTML or any other code, you need to carefully balance the trouble that it will be to maintain against the benefits.